Shifting focus to the group

[Ydars]

One of the major problems with any adventure is when someone dies, and it derails the campaign. It can also happen that people leave the group because of moving out of the area. At the extreme, you have the problem of a TPK, where everyone dies.

ONe approach that some DMs use is to fudge alot and make the game less dangerous. This has never satisified me, and I also hate the idea of resurrections/raise dead in most games I play.

To circumvent the consequences of PC death, I have used something stolen from games like Ars Magica, to great effect: the idea of the group identity as the major character

At the start of the campaign, all the PCs belong to some sort of Umbrella organisation and the goals of that organisation reflect the personal goals or themes of the campaign.

The focus of the adventure is then on the group and not on its individual members, who might change over time. In extreme cases, the characters who complete a major adventure, might be a completely different group to the ones who started it, because those who started are all dead.

Essential to this type of grouping are NPCs (or PCs; see later) who have the resources to investigate if an entire party is killed and bring back their equipment and any information they might have gained: another important pre-requisite is that one of the characters is always writing a coded journal, so that information is seldom completely lost. Thus, if an entire group dies, their kit can be rescued, as can be the information. A new group can then slot straight in, with no need for serious, long-term splits between what the players know and what their character's know.

With this sort of game, you gain a number of advantages: the group has a group purpose and goal, as well as individual goals and also often has a base.

You can also use this format well for games where you don't want magical healing: in this case, everyone has two or three characters and when one set are badly wounded, they rest and the torch passes to the fitter characters to complete the task.

This can also mean that you can engineer a change of pace into the game: if you are fed up with higher level play, use some of the newbie PCs, to run a low level side mission. No one ever plays more than one character per session though.

This also adds the idea of rivals back into the equation: the DM can create NPC groups, who are part of the same organisation as "thorns in the side" of the PCs, but who can't be eliminated.

What other meta-constructs, like this, have other DMs out there used to change the play experience of their players?

 

[The Ghost]

This is very similar to what I am currently doing in my campaign. The PCs began play as part of an adventuring guild - one focused on exploration and treasure gathering. Within the guild each player came up with three to four PCs each. I try to keep the individual adventures short (1-7 encounters per adventure) and encourage the players to switch around which PCs they are playing. So far it has worked quite well.

On the upside I feel more free in setting up encounters because I know that somewhere in the party some PC has the abilities to solve it. I also feel less guilt when I kill any particular PC because there is another ready and waiting to take his spot.

On the downside it is more difficult to separate player knowledge from individual PC knowledge. It is also difficult to keep treasure in line with expectations. Some characters may end up well over expectations while others end up far under. I am still looking for ways to help solve these two problems I have.

 

[Ydars]

I used to sort the treasure problem by having everyone pay all treasure to the organisation over a certain threshold. So a player could keep a certain number of magic tiems, depending upon their rank within the organisation, and any other had to be given to the guild. You could also do the same with treasure.

The advantage is then, that the PCs can borrow magic items and treasure from the common store when their character was short. This can help to even things up, though not all groups have the maturity to "share" like this.

One other thing that encourages sharing is if all magic items are affected by a taint: the magical property of the item works but it is also cursed in some way. The PCs then become less reluctant to part with items, as they have to be cleansed by the guild before they can be used. If the PCs wants an item cleansed then it has to be available to all guild users or at least some items do.

 

[maddman75]

My Cthulhu game worked like this. That's a game that can grind through the PCs. It was entirely player-created, though it could have started from the beginning if the GM desired.

Two of the PCs for the first game were a wealthy heiress and an intrepid young reporter. After their first adventure with the unknown, they tried to get the pictures published. The editors of course laughed at these "obvious fakes" and refused to offer a dime. The two of them decided to start the Arkham Sun, a 1920s version of the Weekly World News, where they could publish their stories.

The paper quickly became the focus of the game. New cases would come in off the news wire, or people would come to them with strange happenings. New PCs were applicants looking for work or people that had a case to investigate. I even made up some prop papers describing their adventures, complete with an ad that said "Wanted: Healthy young men and women to investigate the unknown. Must be team player and willing to face unusual challenges. Funeral costs and mental health coverage provided. Apply in person."

My advice would be to get player buy-in on the organization. And you want to give them lots of leeway. There are places where the NPC superiors tell the PC exactly what to do and how to do it, but most of them are inside Alpha Complex.

 

[Ydars]

That your players came up with the idea for your organisation (the paper) is SO cool Maddman!

I don't really like it when the organisation determines the PCs actions: ordering them around. That's why I said "umbrella organisation" otherwise the thing can become a strait-jacket fairly quickly. I like my organisations to be more like "mutual benefit" organisations.